My Immortal Assassin

by Carolyn Jewel

  “My friend.” Iskander spoke softly. He headed for Kynan, which was either suicidal or courageous. “My friend.”

  For a moment Kynan stood with his taloned hands raised to the ceiling, head back while he brought himself under control. He shifted back to his human form but there wasn’t any mistaking him for a twenty-something human male. Not any more. His magic burned through the room. The warlord’s attention fixed on Gray.

  Iskander caught Durian’s eye and motioned to Gray. “Get her out of here, Assassin.”

  CHAPTER 20

  Gray held her breath. The way Kynan was looking at her, with his magic boiling hot, she was surprised he didn’t come after her. She knew he wanted to because he was letting her see what was in his head. And it wasn’t pretty. He had a link to her. They all had during the fighting. Kynan was the only one who hadn’t released. She tried to dislodge him but nothing worked.

  It was the magic she’d taken from Christophe that triggered his reaction to her. In a room full of magehelds that magic had flared to life, and she’d used what she could in anyway she could.

  Having Kynan in her head was like getting hit by a train. In no time he found her memories of Tigran, all those images and conflicting emotions about what had happened to her. She’d made a bargain with the devil where Tigran was concerned. Kynan Aijan had been through something similar, which she knew not because he let her see but because she recognized his emotions.

  “I did what I had to.” She nodded to the warlord. “I think you probably did the same thing.” He was still super nova, but he wasn’t after her. Not anymore. “Fuck the mages, warlord. All of them who do shit like that.”

  Kynan stayed locked up in her head, burning with a crackle of electricity that robbed her of the ability to tell whether she was standing or flat on the ground. Impossible as it seemed, what she got from Kynan wasn’t pity or blame, but a profound shock of recognition.

  She snapped back to the room feeling like the inside of her head had been set on fire. She couldn’t see normally, just the blazing presence of Durian. Kynan was across from her, staring at her with eyes that shone brilliant gold.

  The warlord took a step toward her and the other two fiends interpreted his actions completely wrong. Iskander hauled him back while Durian got a broad shoulder between her and Kynan. He wasn’t going to attack her. She knew that. He was just shocked as hell to find out they had a lot in common. So was she. She held Kynan’s gaze. “It’s cool,” she said, waving a hand. “Let him go.”

  Awkwardly, because Iskander still held him up, Kynan pressed three fingers to his forehead and bowed his head to her. That was big. Warlords didn’t acknowledge a fiend of lower rank first. Ever. Unless something extraordinary had happened. Their eyes stayed locked, and even though he was hyped up from the fighting, she knew he meant it. He nodded at her again. “You’re on the other side now, human.”

  He let her see something of himself. Enough for her to understand that he’d been mageheld once and had done things that had killed something in him. She said, “Does it get any easier?”

  Kynan didn’t answer right away. “Yeah,” he said at last. “If you have the right people around you, it does.”

  “Thank you.” She replicated his bow as best she could.

  “Take her upstairs, Assassin,” Kynan said. “Make sure she’s all right.”

  “Warlord.” Durian tightened his arm around her, and she allowed herself to relax against him. With Kynan’s magic tugging at her like a riptide, he walked her out of the room. They headed for the back of the house. She was rapidly feeling better after that electric contact with Kynan Aijan, but the lights made her eyes water. Whenever they passed a switch, she turned the lights off. He stopped in a now dim hallway. “How are you feeling?”

  She blinked a few times. A burnt stench floated on the air, particularly pungent here, for some reason. “Better.”

  They reached a side door with a frosted glass window at the top and a mesh curtain stretched over it. Even with the lights off, she could make out the lumpy shapes of the recycling and garbage through the curtain. Durian stayed close to her.

  “Why are we here?” She could make out the outline of his face, the shape of his lower lip, the dark shadow of his hair.

  His hands stayed on her, and she didn’t move. “There is a mage out there.” His eyes glowed faintly purple.

  “That means there’ll be more magehelds out there.”

  “We cannot accuse Christophe without proof.” He lowered his head. Not to kiss her, but so she could hear his soft words. His hands settled around her waist. Her heart skipped a few beats. “If he is behind this attack, I intend to get that proof. Tonight.”

  She grinned at him. “Excellent.” Durian ran a hand through her hair, and she tipped her head back. “Sorry. Still red.”

  “I’m starting to like it.”

  “Yeah?”

  He smiled. “Whoever is out there needs magehelds with their minds intact. We can find the mage easily enough, but his magehelds are another matter.” His fingers tightened around her. “With your particular gift, you could find them easily. They can be disabled before the mage understands what’s happened.”

  “Got it.”

  He rested his forehead against hers. “This is not without risk,” he said softly.

  “What?” She pretended to be shocked. “You mean we’ll be in danger?”

  Durian’s hand slid to the nape of her neck. “Point made.”

  “Let’s go.”

  “A little planning is in order.” He gestured. “The goal is to find and neutralize the magehelds without the mage knowing something has happened.”

  “I take care of the magehelds while you go after the mage.” She lifted her hands, palm up. “See? I get it.”

  “No. We should approach the mage together.” Durian gave a smile so fierce she got chills. “When he understands that his magehelds have been removed without his knowing what happened to them, he will feel motivated to speak frankly with us.”

  “How’s that going to work?” She frowned, trying to think this through. “The magehelds aren’t going to feel yours or Tigran’s magic, but the mage will. And what about my other magic? Magehelds will feel that, won’t they?”

  “I’ll dampen us.”

  “What does that mean?”

  He brushed a hand across her cheek. “It means I can hide us both for a time. Long enough to do what we need to once you’ve located the magehelds for us.”

  She looked around the little anteroom and snatched a dark hooded sweatshirt off a hook by the door. Her skin was too pale for the stealth they needed. Any mageheld halfway paying attention would see her. The sweatshirt was several sizes too large and hung past her butt. She rolled up the sleeves enough to keep them from interfering with her hands. To do this right, she needed gloves, but there wasn’t time.

  She held up a hand and started counting off on her fingers. “First task: locate the magehelds. Second task: we figure out which order to take them in. Third task: scare the living hell out of a mage.”

  “Sounds about right,” he said.

  “Ready when you are.”

  He nodded. Her skin prickled when Durian’s magic flared. Jesus, he was heinously strong. They got a link going, strong enough that they wouldn’t need to talk much. She took a few deep breaths, then she opened the door and the two of them slipped into the night. The pull of Kynan’s and Iskander’s magic on her eased, which was a relief. She was glad to be away from the stench of death, too.

  The back of the house was clear. From Durian, she got the distinct idea that he would have been surprised to find anything different. Kynan and Iskander were in the living room. This close to the two, Gray could feel their magic. She rubbed her arms as she and Durian moved on.

  The house and grounds were alarmed both electronically and magically. Out back, the perimeter proofing remained intact. The house’s wired alarm had been disabled. Durian demonstrated for her how it had been do
ne and how to undo the effect. “Neat,” she whispered as the unit glowed back to life and Durian re-entered the arming codes.

  Several charred and blackened medallions were scattered on the ground along the side of the house. Following the trail of destroyed medallions was easy enough. Even with her mediocre tracking skills, she could tell that one set of magehelds had gone through the garage outlet to the house while the bulk of them had poured in through the now shattered windows after having come from the front of the house.

  Just as Durian said, locating the mage was easy. Even before they were around the front of the house, she felt his magic. In the back of her head she felt a tickle of awareness. Oh, yes. There were magehelds around. With Durian behind her, she inched forward, keeping to the shadows.

  The mage was leaning against the side of a dark Mercedes sedan, watching the house from across the street and about twenty feet down the block. Four magehelds loitered by the open driveway gate, not even trying to hide. She didn’t need magic to find them. They’d been placed where they would be most likely to be of assistance to the other magehelds—back before their brethren were decimated. Across the street, two more stood with the mage. They weren’t trying to hide either, and at any rate, she wasn’t worried about those two.

  Five others were spread out at various locations up and down the block. These guys were taking pains not to be seen. Without the way they resonated in her head, she’d probably never have found them.

  Getting past the four at the gate was easier than she thought. The dampening Durian was doing worked. Another neat trick, she thought. When this was over, she was going to have to try that on her own. With silent agreement, they moved past these four. If they went down, the mage would see they were no longer there. Their quarry were the five who were still hiding, starting with the nearest of the five, and working their way out.

  As she moved within striking distance of the first two mages they were to take down, her nerves vanished. The world narrowed to just the details she needed to accomplish her task. Her hearing was acute enough to take in distant sounds, but she filtered them out as soon as she knew they were not relevant. Traffic on other streets. A far away siren. The only noises that mattered were the ones contained in the perimeter around her targets.

  She crept close and made her two touches; not killing touches, but enough to make their eyes roll back in their heads. Durian caught each mageheld as it fell, senseless, to the ground. She went on to the next two. She knew with Durian dampening them they wouldn’t sense her magically, but they also never heard her coming. Done. Five minutes later, they were done again.

  There were more, but they were far enough away not to be a threat to her and Durian getting to the mage. If it had been necessary, though, she would have taken them down, too.

  Easy.

  She and Durian, with him continuing to dampen them, walked down the middle of the street. They headed straight for the mage who didn’t have any idea what had happened to his magehelds.

  CHAPTER 21

  The mage came off the car with a start when Durian undampened them and crossed the street with Gray at his side. She, of course, had been magnificent. Focused. Calm. Intent on their goal. With no reason to worry she’d need assistance, he’d been able to concentrate on keeping their magic ramped down to a point too low for all but a rare gifted few to sense their presence. He and Gray worked well together.

  The magic that kept the mage hidden in shadows that were darker and quieter than normal floated around the car like smoke. A ripple of awareness of the mage slid down his back. A few more steps and they were close enough to identify the mage.

  Gray’s disappointment that it wasn’t Christophe was palpable.

  Nor was it Rasmus Kessler.

  Leonidas.

  How disappointing, and for any number of reasons. Still in the street, he and Gray came to a stop, close enough for Durian to see the mage’s eyes go wide. Leonidas didn’t quite manage to suppress his leap of fear. The mage knew what Durian was, after all. There weren’t many reasons for an assassin to appear as if from nowhere.

  “Shall we have that coffee now, Leonidas?”

  Leonidas muttered something under his breath that moved through Durian like a whisper of fell air across his soul. Within seconds, the magehelds he and Gray had left alone loped toward them, coming from both ends of the street. Too little. Too late. In any event, they weren’t moving fast enough to have been ordered to attack.

  Never trust a mage.

  Durian kept his magic at the ready. Leonidas frowned, realizing, Durian supposed, that not all of his magehelds had responded to his summons.

  “I’ll take that as a no,” Durian said. “Well. I’d invite you in.” He tilted his head in the direction of the house. “But I’m afraid we have some work to do before we have guests again.”

  “Where are the rest?” The mage gestured toward the opposite side of the street where his other magehelds had been standing watch. The two magehelds who had stayed with him took up positions at the trunk and hood of his car, a placement more defensive than threatening.

  Durian slung an arm around Gray’s shoulders but twisted his upper body to look behind him. When he looked back, Leonidas was watching Gray. Intently watching. Durian kept his arm around her and said in a deliberately easy tone, “The ones you sent inside will not return. The others are… not currently at your command. Give them a few minutes to recover.”

  “Thank you.” He inclined his head. “It would have been a pity to lose them.” Leonidas straightened the sleeves of his double-breasted suit jacket. A pair of faceted square-cut rubies glittered from his cuffs. Absolutely perfectly made suit. His trousers fell with exactly the right drape.

  “Custom or bespoke?”

  The mage looked insulted. “Made to my precise measurements, fiend.” He didn’t put a mage’s usual insulting tone behind his words. “I use a tailor in London. Bond Street.” The magehelds he’d called in reached him, but he lifted a hand. The fiends stopped. They arranged themselves on the sidewalk near the trunk of the car. Not so close that they represented a danger, but not so far that they would not be of assistance. Durian did not feel more magic from the mage.

  “I prefer the Italian style,” Durian said.

  “Is that so?”

  He did not begrudge the mage his superior smile. He still had on the dark sweat pants and shirt he wore for training with Gray. “Perhaps you’ve changed my mind,” Durian said. “I don’t suppose you’d give me your tailor’s name?” Gray jabbed him in the side with a sharp elbow. He covered his reaction by drawing her closer to him and smiling.

  “No.”

  “He tried to kill us. Is there some reason you’re making nice?”

  “Kill you?” Leonidas looked offended. “Hardly.”

  “My dearest love,” he said. “That suit was made by someone who knows his way around a pair of scissors. I had to ask.”

  She rolled her eyes. “He’s hot for your clothes, mage. Don’t you find that a little disturbing between enemies?”

  Leonidas’s attention moved from Durian to Gray and back. “Perhaps I am not your enemy.”

  Gray’s look of astonished disbelief made Durian smile. “You attacked us. I think that qualifies us as enemies.”

  The mage studied Gray for much longer than was polite. He, too, stood in the street, though he kept his back to the car. The chances of a fight in the street were low but not non-existent. This was not a neighborhood where one could get away with conversations that disturbed people in their rest, and the kind of magic Leonidas was using to mask their presence only went so far. They kept their voices deliberately low.

  “I find,” the mage said, “that some enemies are more worthy than certain allies.” He reached into an inside pocket of his jacket. When Gray went on point, he slowly extracted a pack of rolling papers at the same time he gave Durian a questioning look.

  He shrugged.

  “Circumstances change,” Leonidas said. �
�I have been alive long enough to watch allies become enemies and enemies become one’s closest allies.” With the same deliberation, he took a small paper packet from an outside pocket which he unfolded. He proceeded to roll himself a cigarette from the substance inside. From the color and texture, the contents were likely copa-laced tobacco. Mages used the drug when they were magically exhausted or when they needed to call more magic than they comfortably possessed. Leonidas did not have the latter problem.

  The mage’s dose of the drug looked to be too small to give him much of a boost, but then Leonidas would be well aware of the dangers. For his kind, copa was addictive, and addiction led, inevitably, to magical burnout. When he was done rolling his cigarette with practiced hands he replaced everything and took out a square silver lighter. “The ones inside were not mine.”

  “No?” He didn’t like the way the mage continued to stare at Gray over the top of his copa cigarette.

  “No.” The lighter flared. The paper caught and hissed as the mage inhaled. A moment later, the scent of some rich blend of copa-infused tobacco wafted into the air around them. His hands shook as he inhaled and returned his lighter to his pocket.

  “If not you,” Durian said, “then who?”

  “Forgive me,” Leonidas said to Gray. “Do I know you?”

  Durian tensed. Leonidas was one of the older mages. Possibly the oldest of Durian’s acquaintance. He was, among the magekind, one of the few whose opinion had any effect on the more powerful mages. He distrusted and disliked his interest in Gray. “I doubt it.”

  At the same time, Gray said, “Sure. You were hitting on me at Nordstrom.”

  “That isn’t it.” He took a step forward, his free hand extended with the obvious intent of taking her chin between his fingers.